


The Dawn's Rising

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 16:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-revolution, the amis find themselves in something of a purgatory. Grantaire and Enjolras face each other as dead men, and as those entwined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dawn's Rising

It was not to be explained. For now, not one of them had touched upon the idea. Not one of them wanted to. They remembered the barricade. They remembered  _les carabines_ , they remembered gun powder, smoke, screams and yelling soaking up the Parisian night air, remembered loud utterances.

Prouvaire had been waiting for them when they had all stumbled into the room, the very replica of the Café Musain. He had been seated in his chair, and when they had entered he had stood, let out a choked sound and clasped at his cravat, gripping it tightly in ink-stained fingers. How odd it was, Enjolras had thought, that the ink was there in this world, but not the blood he’d died with.

"Dear God in Heaven." He had whispered.  _"No._ " And Courfeyrac had thrown himself forwards before any of them, capturing the man in a tight, passionate embrace and pressing kisses to the top of his head, his temples, his forehead, his cheeks and jaw, as Jehan let out desperate little sobs and clutched at him tightly.

Gavroche was not there. Nor, indeed, was Éponine, or the other students and men who had been involved in the barricade, the artillery sergeant, le Cabuc, Mabeuf, no, none of them were present. Indeed, it was merely _les amis de l’ABC_ , those nine of them. 

To begin with, none of them talked at all, not really. Bossuet pulled Joly half into his lap, buried his face in the younger man’s neck as Joly clasped tightly at the back of his lover’s head and kept him close, and they wept for Musichetta.

Not for their own deaths, because those were immaterial. Musichetta, though, she was everything, and they cried.

Combeferre dropped into a chair, sipped at a drink - and those drinks were there, their drinks that were always there, God, there were still maps of Patria on the walls, still plans and pamphlets and dog-eared manifestos scattered around the useless,  _useless_  ghost of a room - and stared into space.

Combeferre thought of his mother, and not one man made to disturb him.

Courfeyrac continued to hold Prouvaire for a time, hand in his hair as he offered barely audible comforts in his ear, and Bahorel joined the both of them, clutching at Prouvaire and Courfeyrac both. And he whispered the name of his mistress, whispered her name to the air of that Godforsaken, ghostly room, and every single one of them pretended not to hear it, for her name, to Bahorel, was sacred.

Feuilly did not cry. He did not join them in their weeping, but merely stood in place, looking stricken with grief as he looked between his dearest friends, and clutched his cap in his hands. 

Even Grantaire cried, his one hand obscuring his face as his other clutched at the bottle. The one on his face, Enjolras thought, was the one he’d clasped at the barricade, when Grantaire had asked his permission to die. 

It was this thought that brought Enjolras to his knees, letting out a few tears before he recovered himself. He had never been one for crying, even when he had been living.  _When he had been living_. What a turn of phrase.

He did not know how they had gone from that state, grief for their own lives, for their own deaths, for the death of freedom, of the revolution, grief for family portraits that would now hold an emptiness, and for places at dinner tables and in cafés and on park benches that would be left without their presence, grief for the families that would weep for these things too, to a different one. It passed in an odd cloud of memory and time and strangeness, and Enjolras was not certain that in this strange purgatory minutes ticked by in the same fashion as they once had.

When it occurred to him to try the door, it was found to be locked, and not one of them had his timepiece. The light at the window never changed, either, - the sun was eternally below the horizon, never quite rising. The night was dark, and the air chilly, but none of them commented on that, nor on the candles placed around the room that never dripped their wax nor shortene in their length.

Such discourse seemed pointless, in the scheme of things.

And so they dipped into philosophy, and politics, and how society should be. They did not say “would be”, not because they (barring Grantaire) had lost their optimism, because in this place, such things seemed obvious. 

He did not know for how long they had been talking. They did not tire, did not feel the need for sleep or rest or food. They drank, but only because the bottles and glasses were there, and seemed to be endless in their fullness - none of them grew more intoxicated, and the actions were nearly mechanical. 

"No, no, my friend, that is very much not the point." Grantaire interrupted Jehan’s speech on the goodness of humanity with more vigour than Enjolras had ever seen him speak with. It was not the languid disrespect with which he had always treated Enjolras’ more optimistic points, but an honest, oratory passion that suited him more than was right. "I have heard many a man defend a sin, and many more defend a faux-pas, and yet more defend an honest cruelty, and we do not have the good sense to consider our foes and our allies  _honestly_ , do not- we do not consider that our idols are flawed and brutish in the areas they are not a delight, and we do not consider that our demons are deceivingly charming in the areas that they are not Hellish.”

Enjolras stared at him, and so did everyone else. Enjolras was stoned by his words, blown away by them - not by their own value, but by their coming from Grantaire’s chapped lips and awful mouth. He did not have the heart to correct his present tense to past as he continued onwards, because it pained him to think about it, and he was certain it pained Grantaire too.

"I have heard people defend  _my_  actions, you know. When I’m cruel, or capricious, or when I’m being decadent and self-serving and considering the most  _vile_  acts of hedonism, and it is not  _right_. No virtuous society defends the villain, and yet, here we are.” Grantaire stuttered, stopped short, and stared unhappily at his empty bottle. “Do you know, I believe I am both too young and too sober and too  _dead_  for this sort of verily difficult philosophy.” 

And he stumbled backwards, moving over to the bar to grasp at another bottle, and Courfeyrac and Combeferre both stared after him before sharing a look. “You aren’t a villain, Grantaire.” Jehan said softly when the drunkard seated himself again, and the artist  _tittered._

"Am I not?" And his laughter was bitter, harsh, painful to Enjolras’ ears as it clumsily devolved from guffaws to intoxicated giggles, and Grantaire set his bottle down, putting his face in his hands. "I am, Prouvaire." He murmured quietly. "I had a good half-decade on my back that you never got possession of, and do trust me, I am."

"He’s not: don’t you listen to him. He may be a drunken fool, but he’s no villain." Grantaire looked up at the sound of Enjolras’ voice, striking in the sudden somber silence of the room, and the brunet  _stared_  at him.”Your words are an insult to every true villain there is, my friend.” 

And Enjolras toasted Grantaire with the little wine he had in his glass, the barest amount and the only amount Enjolras would ever consent to drinking even in this spectral Hell, and took his sip. 

"Why believe an angel on the sins of any man? They will only see the redeemable." Grantaire spat, but Enjolras rolled his eyes at the weakness in his words.

"Did you truly just damn the pedestal one moment and place my soul upon it the next? Look at where we are, Grantaire. Look at me amongst you, amongst us, us  _amis de l’ABC_ , barring Marius, who had the God smile upon him and bring him safely home to his Cosette, no doubt. Look at our souls, equal in their purgatory, and tell me again I am an angel.”

"Yours is still different." Grantaire said.

"Is it really?" Enjolras retorted, tone dripping with sarcasm, and he nearly found himself laughing himself.

"Should we leave you two alone to offer your souls to one another?" Courfeyrac asked, a joke, and Joly and Bossuet and Jehan managed weak laughter, but Feuilly and Combeferre remained entirely serious, and Bahorel just looked sad. They knew they couldn’t leave the two alone even if they wished to, and even if they could, what difference would it have been? Two ghosts entwined, what did it matter? 

"Oh, you need never leave me alone with him. This verifiable  _villain_  would tear my heart out.”

"I’d never." Grantaire returned Enjolras’ attempt at jest with an unhappy look, his lip quivering, and Enjolras offered him as kind a smile as he could manage when Grantaire looked so awful.

Enjolras had felt many an emotion with Grantaire before, fury, anger, passion, spite, lust, even, but never had he felt such complete remorse. Was it his fault Grantaire felt this way? Undoubtedly. Enjolras considered what hazy memories remained, hazy memories of revolution, hazy memories of the only smile he’d bestowed upon this wretched man as he’d reached out to grasp his hand. “I know.” Enjolras said softly, and Grantaire looked ready to sob. 

He stood and moved across the room in a fit of bad thinking, but bad thinking or not, impulse or not, he clasped Grantaire’s hand tightly in his and brought it to his mouth, pressing his lips to the scarred, paint-stained knuckles as Grantaire stared up at him, awestruck to all appearances. “No, I know you wouldn’t.” He repeated, and Grantaire dropped the bottle.

It shattered on the ground, glass and brandy thrown across the boards of the floor, soaking into the dust and the wood. Grantaire did not even look, not daring to tear his gaze away from his chief’s face in case Enjolras disappeared. “Do you permit it?” Enjolras asked, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked at the other, and Grantaire’s smile was a beautiful thing, beautiful, delightful, full of such complete joy that Enjolras felt his heart pound in his chest as he dipped forwards and captured the other man’s lips in a kiss.

Grantaire’s mouth tasted of brandy and tobacco, and Enjolras could smell the paint on him as he leaned into the kiss, tangling his hands in Grantaire’s hair. Initially, he had no clue as to what to do, but Grantaire took control, steadying his shaking hands on the jut of Enjolras’ hips as he dominated the kiss, his tongue clever against Enjolras’, his lips a euphoria Enjolras had never dreamt of.

Two ghosts entwined, meaning nothing? A ridiculous thought

When Grantaire released him, Enjolras felt dazed, intoxicated on more than white wine and brandy, and Grantaire caught him as he nearly fell to the ground, easing him into a chair. “He calls it purgatory and yet he finds his Heaven.” Prouvaire whispered, peering at Enjolras with complete curiosity, and Bahorel gently elbowed him.

"Hush, Jehan. Give them a few moments." Feuilly advised, gently touching the poet’s hand.

Enjolras and Grantaire heard none of this interaction. They heard only each other’s breathing, heavy and obscenely loud. “No virtuous society defends the villain.” Enjolras managed to get out between wheezing breaths. “This is true. But we were not yet a virtuous society, I do not believe. It can be attained, my friend.” And his hand sought Grantaire’s again, and the drunkard took it, interlinking their fingers. Grantaire’s hand was warm. “It will be attained.”

More philosophy was spoken of. They talked for a long time, and as the night sky slowly began to allow light to filter through, they felt drowsy in a way they never had before. It was Prouvaire that slept first, pressing closely to Feuilly and Bahorel, clutching at them with drowsy hands.

Joly and Bossuet slept together, curled as they were in one chair that creaked to hold both of their weights. Courfeyrac slept with his head on Combeferre’s shoulder, and when Combeferre succumbed to Morpheus’ call, his head rested atop Courfeyrac’s.

"Is this our second death?" Grantaire whispered as he looked at his sleeping fellows, taking in their peaceful faces. 

"I know not. I know nothing, now, bar one thing." And Enjolras shifted closer. " _Je t’adore_.” And Grantaire clutched at him, pulled him close, wrapped his arms around Enjolras and cradled his head as Enjolras let his fatigued eyes close, and Grantaire whispered against his hair, “I have always loved you.”

He saw the dawn break just before his head dropped forwards, his eyes closed.

Dawn’s rising lit their faces, extinguished the shadows in the rooms, and left only them,  _les amis de l’ABC_ , asleep at their tables, in the room that had been their home for years now. The night had ended, and now, they slept.


End file.
